A Reddit user has been reported to the FBI for homicide by Redditors after confessing to the murder of his sister’s “meth addict” boyfriend online, using the popular ‘confession bear’ meme. Whether the confession was true remains unclear.
The image of the ashamed and defeated-looking baby black bear
was given the caption: “My sister had an abusive meth-addict
boyfriend. I killed him with his own drugs while he was unconscious
and they ruled it as an overdose.” The picture sparked an
ethical debate, and eventually led to the FBI being
contacted.
Normally, the bear is used to ‘confess’ trivial and day-to-day
matters – many have derided the bear as a tool to convey popular
opinion, rather than confessions.
However, when a true confession does emerge, it tends to be
fairly tame: “I found my dad’s alter-ego account on a message
board. I purposely troll [antagonize] him and laugh after he calls
me up to complain about the idiots he talks to online.” Or,
boyfriends admitting to tightening jar lids after arguments, so
their girlfriends ask for help.
The explosive murder confession meme was posted by user Naratto on
the Reddit subforum ‘r/advice animals,’ under the thread title
“finally have the guts to say it” late on Saturday night.
The thread was later deleted after the original poster dismissed
his confession as a joke.
Reddit users quickly ‘doxed’ (revealed) personal details about the
user, who appeared not to have been too careful about concealing
his identity.
User lionheart1610k pointed out that: “His post history had his
middle name and his birthday, plus his job history and military
rank, as well as a ton of info about where he lived. A couple
people googled his user name and found a steam profile with the
same info and a FULL NAME which matched an FB profile and a number
of other profiles.”
Naratto quickly backtracked: “There is SOME truth behind it, but
I’m not saying,” he said prior to the thread’s deletion. Some
speculation ensued, questioning whether the user was just seeking
‘karma’ – points given for highly rated links, which Reddit users
can accumulate.
The posting received 3,000 comments on Reddit, 10,190 ‘upvotes’ and
8,864 ‘downvotes.’
“I'm not saying what was true and what wasn't. If I had a dollar
for every time someone took me seriously on the internet, I would
be able to retire from today alone. I'm sorry to anyone that I've
offended to the point of ruining their lives,” Naratto
continued.
He followed up his backtracking with the ‘super-cool ski
instructor’ meme from South Park, using the caption: “If you
joke about murder on Reddit without a throw away account... You're
gonna have a bad time.”
The FBI has now been contacted about a possible murder, after
Redditors reported the posting to the FBI’s tips website. “At
least one user copy/pasted what was in the deleted comment into
tips.fbi.gov,” user 0818 said. If his personal information
links to somebody whose sister did have a boyfriend who overdosed,
it is likely that an investigation will ensue.
User Manial pointed out that “I think OP [original poster] just
made it up, it's very similar to a plot line in Dexter, where he
frames his girlfriend's abusive ex-husband by giving him an
overdose of the drug he was addicted to.” Others drew parallels
with equally popular US television show ‘Breaking Bad.’
Naratto has since deleted both his account and the original
post.
Some seemed to be defending Naratto’s alleged murder: “He killed
a person who was abusing his sister… sure murder is wrong, and
there may have been a better solution, but there also may not have
been,” elusiveinhouston wrote.
User awad111 disagreed: “So if it's okay to murder someone for
abusing your sister, it then must absolutely be okay for the meth
addicts family to then murder OP for killing their son. And then
everyone can just keep murdering whoever they want.”